Capacitors are one type of component commonly used in the fabrication of integrated circuits, for example in DRAM and other circuitry. A typical capacitor is comprised of two conductive electrodes separated by a non-conducting dielectric region. As integrated circuitry density has increased, there is a continuing challenge to maintain sufficiently high storage capacitance despite typical decreasing capacitor area. The increase in density of integrated circuitry has typically resulted in greater reduction in the horizontal dimension of capacitors as compared to the vertical dimension. In many instances, the vertical dimension of capacitors has increased.
Several techniques have been developed to increase the storage capacity of a capacitor. One such technique is to fabricate a capacitor wherein at least one of the capacitor electrodes is double-sided and container-shaped. For example, an array of capacitor electrode openings for individual capacitors is typically fabricated in a suitable capacitor electrode-forming material, for example silicon dioxide doped with one or both of phosphorus and boron. Such openings are typically formed by dry anisotropic etching, and then lined with one or more conductive materials from which individual container-shaped capacitors are formed. It is then often desirable to etch away most if not all of the capacitor electrode-forming material to expose outer sidewall surface of the electrodes to provide increased area, and associated increased capacitance for the capacitors being formed. It may be desirable to form a lattice-like support for the capacitor electrode containers prior to etching to expose the outer container sidewalls, hopefully to preclude any subsequent toppling of the containers. For example and by way of example only, U.S. Pat. No. 6,667,502 and U.S. Published Application No. 2005/0051822 teach the provision of brace or lattice-like retaining structures intended to preclude such toppling.
Regardless, the vertical dimension of such capacitors has continued to increase while the horizontal dimension stays the same or decreases. Such dimensional variations result in the capacitor electrode openings needing to be etched deeper into the capacitor electrode-forming material. It is difficult to etch extremely deep capacitor electrode openings within doped silicon dioxides, such as phosphosilicate glass (PSG). However, doped silicon dioxides do provide the advantage of enabling a comparatively easy subsequent wet etch for exposing the outer sidewall surfaces of container-shaped electrodes.